Review by Saxy S for Drown (OR-USA) - Subaqueous (2020)

I don't typically do Funeral Metal or Depressive Suicidal Metal because most of the music found within is exceptionally nihilistic, but lacking any of the higher stakes. But the newest album from Drown, the brainchild of Markov Soroka has been received favorably in the early stages, so I decided to check it out.

Okay, so this album is the continuation of Unsleep, a project released in 2014 that supposedly tells the story of drowning at sea as our main characters (Mother Cetacean & Father Subaqueous) watch and we get their reaction as they lose their son. One thing I will say right out of the gate is that while Subaqueous is certainly the harder album to digest, I also think that it's slightly better than Unsleep. The songwriting has vastly improved and the instrumentals are able to tell an ever evolving story through melodic motifs and phrases repeated and modulated. And this isn't just through the individual movements, but across the two parts as well. I was very impressed to hear how the opening idea from "Mother Cetacean" was modulated and contorted into the bridge of "Father Subaqueous". I also enjoyed how, more so on "Mother Cetacean", the track picks up intensity through it's run time, making for what could be a painful listen, a lot more bearable.

However, there is something to criticize and that is the vocals. These tracks are delivered in the third person perspective, with the exception of the final lines of "Father Subaqueous". As a result, I don't understand why Soroka uses filters on his vocals to make him sound like he's underwater. If this was a first person telling, fair enough, but I had a hard time understanding anything that Soroka was saying. When I look on recent death doom metal albums that I have enjoyed (Songs From the North, The Boats of the Glen Carrig, The Death of Gaia, The Plague Within) each album has clear, crisp vocal deliveries from their vocalists. I would expect on a funeral metal album like this that vocals would take prominence, just as they would from any Emo band or Depressive Suicidal Metal.

As a result, I found this album to be a little tedious. Not bad by any stretch, but not an album you can just pick up and play. And as I mentioned off the top, it is lacking in any of the higher stakes, since it is told from a third person perspective, rather than being delivered straight from the source. Still, the music is strong enough on its own to save this album from mediocrity. Tread lightly upon these waters.